‘Even at 3-1, I said we can come back and win'

While most Arsenal fans would have been worried at half time of Sunday’s match against West Ham United as we trailed 3-1, Mikel Arteta never stopped believing in his side.

Our manager was convinced we could even come back and win the game, and we so nearly did as we hauled our way back to 3-3 and had some late chance to snatch the victory.

“It’s incredible,” Arteta told Arsenal.com. “I have seen that before, I have seen them train, I tell you all the time the same thing. I see them train, I see them behave, the togetherness, the spirt and the atmosphere that they are creating among themselves and the staff.

“Even at 3-1, I said we can come back and win the game because I had this belief because they really believe. But only when we do the things that we can do. And at the end of the game I think it's a shame because we should have scored six or seven.

“I’m disappointed on one side because of the way we started the game. The first goal we conceded is their quality, they can do that and we accept that. The other two goals, no. The chance that we gave them at the end ourselves, I can't accept it.

“We showed a phase that I didn't like at all for some minutes in the first half. Then I think we hit another level with the way we can play, which is probably the best I've seen us play the whole season. I cannot accept that the team has two phases, it only has one phase which is the top level that we can reach consistently every three days for the whole period of the game. If we are able to do that, then we'll become a different team.”